


Vigil

by squire



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drug Abuse, Gen, Mentions of Violence, Non-Linear Narrative, dream-like reality, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 11:47:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squire/pseuds/squire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He promised he would never leave him. Only that he did.</p><p>
  <i>Benzodiazepine overdose: respiratory depression, hypotension, coma, death.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Greedy you,” he murmurs as he sits down on the bed, slow and careful not to disturb the position of the body. “You couldn’t have left some for me, could you?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>It is strange; one would think that should it ever come down to this, the man would use his gun.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“You never fail to surprise me, John,” Sherlock whispers softly before he settles down next to John, folding his body into a similar position, curled up against the cold and stillness. His eyes never leave the unmoving body next to him, the still damp mop of short grey-blonde hair, face overwritten with all the evidence like a crime scene. John, the scene of Sherlock’s own crime.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vigil

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'ed by my faithful friends CirilEowyn and The_Circus.

The room is very quiet; so quiet it feels unnatural. Thick curtains drawn over the windows muffle the sounds of the street, low and sparse in thesmall hours of the morning. So quiet **,** like time itself had died here and had been laid down on the bed, leaving the room in a bubble of immutability. The soft creak of the hardwood floor is a jarring sound in his ears as he enters the room, holding his breath out of thefear it might ruin its air of a sanctuary. He can almost hear the echo of the light from the hall falling on and being reflected by the empty glass on the nightstand.

 

On the right side of the bed a short figure of a man is curled on his side, eyes closed. You would think that the stillness of the room has lulled him into sleep but the man at the door knows better; it’s the changelessness of his sleep that has put a spell over this room, it’s the absence of the sound of his breathing that had silenced every other sound around him.

 

There’s a faint smell of damp air from the bathroom and not even a hint of the metallic dried blood one would expect on a crime scene. But then, this room is not a crime scene just because it contains a body.

 

The intruder shifts closer to the bed, reaches out a hand for a few tentative touches. The frame of the body is so small; he used to fill up whole room with his presence but now he looks diminished, crushed– 

_–bruises all over his ribs and arms and face, some of them so bad that the skin is broken but all the traces of blood are carefully washed away–_

 

–the skin is still warm under his fingertips but the cold sheets are drawing the remnants of his body heat slowly away–

 

– _clothes torn and crumpled and smeared with darkened blood but folded neatly on a pile on the floor–_

_–_ the chest still heaving imperceptibly in a too slow rhythm, drawing in breath in shallow, inaudible intakes **,** any of them could be the last–

 

_–nosebleed stopped long ago, mouth still swollen from where it was pressed against the carpet, short polyester fibers would be found deep down his trachea as he struggled for breath earlier–_

–and it would happen soon, the one breath that would become the last, because there is a whole package of temazepam lying forgotten beside the empty glass on the nightstand and not a single tablet inside.

 

_Benzodiazepine overdose: respiratory depression, hypotension, coma, death._

 

“Greedy you,” he murmurs as he sits down on the bed, slow and careful not to disturb the position of the body. “You couldn’t have left some for me, could you?”

 

It is strange; one would think that should it ever come down to this, the man would use his gun.

 

“You never fail to surprise me, John,” Sherlock whispers softly before he settles down next to John, folding his body into a similar position, curled up against the cold and stillness. His eyes never leave the unmoving body next to him, the still damp mop of short grey-blonde hair, face overwritten with all the evidence like a crime scene. John, the scene of Sherlock’s own crime.

_Eight months earlier_

 

No matter how pressing the matters at hand are, how demanding a puzzle, or how dangerous a situation, Sherlock’s first waking thought would always fly to John.

 

It hurt at first. The only images of John that his mind would supply, jittery with all the _wrongness_ of the time and place and surroundings, were the parting ones. John’s head upturned, eyes narrowed against the sky, his face ashen with shock, mouth swallowing against the endless _No’s_ swelling up in his throat. John’s figure, stiff and soldierly and shaking only so slightly, drowning from inside with suppressed sobs. It haunted him for a while until he found a way how to fight it effectively.

 

“I daresay _you’ve_ slept well enough,” he growls the accusation as he wakes up in the cheap hotel room in Kyoto, sheets soaking with his own sweat, feet dangling from the too small bed. It’s five in the morning, the outside temperature is already above 30 °C, and the air conditioning system is out of order.

 

“Welcome to Kyoto, the home of the environmental protection,” an ethereal John Watson gives him an amused smirk before he gets up from the bed, all perfect composure and not a single drop of sweat on the back of his neck, and disappears into the bathroom. Outside, the weather rages into a thunderstorm, so rare for this climate; the thunder rips trough the humid air with the intensity of a train crash, so loud that the bed shakes, and Sherlock presses his face into the pillows, craving a moment of piece, coolness, focus, bright awareness, and not this stupefying wet heat that is gnawing at his skin with trickles of sweat. The lightning pierces the sky and Sherlock is thinking of billions different lights burning behind his closed eyes, stars rising and fading with the level of serotonin and dopamine in his brain.

 

_Six months earlier_

 

“No chance for a full English in here, I guess” the same, unchangeable John emerges from the bathroom in another hotel room in Berlin, stepping closer to lay his head on Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock stands in the middle of the tiny room and imagines his friend’s litany over the rumbling of his stomach. Then he picks up the bag of _Gummibärchen_ the maid has left on the pillow after making his bed.

 

“You can’t live just on these. After all, you’re the one who’s fluent in this throat sickness passed off as a language so you can order room service. You should.”

 

Sherlock swallows the sweets one by one, absentmindedly, weighing his odds in the plans he’s got for today. Nothing is going to happen till the evening anyway. And he’s hungry. _Hungry_ and tired. The transport is annoying. He can’t afford to play his game tonight with half of his blood supply wasted on his digestive track.

 

“At least, go to the _Frühstückcafé_ round the corner.” John disappears before the scowl on Sherlock’s face can reach him.

 

He spots the man as soon as he steps out of the hotel. Something so familiar in his bearing, in the looks he’s casting around, his put on indifference, that Sherlock’s stomach clenches in _hunger_. It may be a pure chance or a bid of destiny, but he really doesn’t care, not when he sees the possibility of calming down the demands of his transport, the ones he didn’t think he had anymore and that are now banging at the doors of his consciousness.

 

He follows the man into the _U-Bahn_. There are plenty of CCTV security cameras on the platforms, but none of them spies for Mycroft.

 

Sherlock is alive again, so brightly and loudly, the blood of the city of the _Kinder aus dem Bahnhof Zoo_ thrumming through his veins. The evening goes splendidly well. Next morning, John won’tlook him in the eyes.

_Two months earlier_

 

It’s the morning when his first waking thought goes to cocaine instead to John that he decides it’s time to stop.

 

– _Have secured a place for you. Don’t argue and just go there. You know you need it. M._

_–No chance you’d get me to rot in there like you did before. I’m going home. S._

_–Home is not safe. M._

_–John will take care of me. S._

 

The voice of his brother on the phone is surprisingly clear given the distance. But then, Capetown is no longer a city for romantic adventures with cracked phone lines and rusty payphones. It’s a city of endless possibilities and an infinite variety of supplies.

 

“Don’t make him to do this for you, Sherlock. Remember... us. Don’t push him into the role that you’d only hate in the end.”

 

“I could never hate _him_ , Mycroft.”

 

*

 

Time swirls around the room, leaving it unaffected like the eye of a storm. The edges of Sherlock’s vision blur but he won’t even blink, doesn’t want to miss the tiniest moment of this vigil. It’s the last thing he can do.

 

He can’t tell anymore if John’s still breathing or has left definitely for somewhere Sherlock cannot follow him, for now. He will; tomorrow he’ll find the gun and will wrap his lips around it and pull the trigger, but now he cannot; because he wants to do that with grace and not when his hands are shaky and his cheeks wet with tears he doesn’t remember weeping. 

 

Eons pass by and he doesn’t move. His imagination takes over his weary eyes and he’s beginning to see the slightest changes as time finally reclaims this room and this body. There are already shallow shadows round the closed eyes and lips where the flesh starts to lose water. He’s seen enough corpses in various state of deterioration to know how the dried lips will draw back, barring the teeth in a post-mortal smile; how the soft skin over the temples will wrinkle and how long the stubble will grow on John’s face, hair follicles refusing to accept death for another couple of days.

 

*

_Six weeks earlier_

 

It takes John exactly an hour and twenty one minutes of wrapping his mind round the fact that his dead friend is very much _fucking_ alive when his doctor instincts kick in and he begins to notice that something with Sherlock is more than off.

 

It takes him another two days to put two and two together and it’s then he finally understands the text from Mycroft:

 

_–Please, do not hesitate to ask for whatever help I am able to offer._

John’s throat is still a bit sore from shouting at Sherlock who’s now curled on the sofa, lids heavy with uneasy sleep and with all the promises John has forced upon him, so he decides to text back instead of calling:

 

_–I can handle this. He’s not the first addict in my life after all._

 

It takes him another few weeks to suddenly recall a stray bit of conversation _–_

_Harry and I... we don’t get on. We never did–_

_–_ and to realize why exactly it was like that.

 

*

 

At some point, phantoms of other people start to show up, paying their visit to the side of the deathbed, honouring the dead, prodding at Sherlock’s wounds. He wants them to disappear but they keep coming and going. Utterly predictable, all of them.

 

Mrs. Hudson, worried and confused and reproachful. “Dear me, what has happened? What did you get him into?” She comes too close and tries to pull a blanket over John. As if it could prevent the heat leaving his body forever and suddenly Sherlock is screaming–

 

“Don’t touch him!”

 

He doesn’t look at her when she’s tripping over the doorstep and sobbing down the stairs; he’s too concerned about his precious dead. One touch might have ruined everything, disturb the fragile balance between timeless preservation of _now_ and the awful reality _after_. Sherlock is afraid that should someone touch the body its form would crumble into dust and scatter all over the sheets. It’s only his vigil that keeps John unchanged now; should he move, should he go away, John would be lost.

 

*

_Four weeks earlier_

 

 _This is how it feels to have a newborn baby in the house_ , John thinks as he tries to look over his left shoulder, wincing at the pain. The symptoms are much the same: Soothing the cries for the better part of the night, laundry basket stuffed with soiled sheets, and a sore neck from too few and too intermittent kips on the sofa. John doesn’t dare to sleep in his own bed; not yet.

 

“How’s the nausea?” he calls into Sherlock’s room when the sound of running water stops and he can peek at bits of Sherlock getting dressed through the crack in his bedroom door.

 

“Better,” Sherlock admits. “I’d rather do something about the insomnia too. One pill is...”

 

“No way,” John informs him sternly. “You’re not going to develop sleeping medication dependence. We agreed.”

 

“ _You’ve_ said so,” Sherlock grumbles under his breath. The tickling in his forearms is back. Soon it will reach his back and spread over his entire body and grow insufferably itchy and _if only he could scratch his skin off_ –

 

“Hey, hey!” John stops him, grabbing him by the arms, covering the restless fingers with his own, steady hands.

 

“It’s eating me alive!” Sherlock whines, fearing to look down on himself in case he might actually see the ants crawling up his skin.

 

“It’s only in your head.” John presses his forehead against Sherlock’s, arms braced on his chest, holding him firm. “Cocaine is not physically addictive. It’s only your mind that craves it.”

 

“It used to crave _you_ ,” Sherlock blurts out irritably. He silently blames his friend for not being more addictive. _Why couldn’t you be enough for me, John?_

 

_Two weeks earlier_

 

“Okay, this has to stop. I’ll run you a bath and then you’re getting in there or I swear to God I’ll manhandle you into it.”

 

The worst about depression is that you’re not sure what matters anymore.

 

“This definitely matters, Sherlock. You _smell_. Get out of those clothes and into the bathtub, _now._ ”

 

It doesn’t matter that John can take a good look at his body as he washes him carefully but effectively, something that Sherlock’s been anxious to avoid before. But who cares anyway about what he’s been through? Who cares?

 

“I don’t think I want to hear what you’ve been through,” John shakes his head, hiding the pity behind knotted eyebrows. He tracks the random scars, evidence of three years of danger he had no part in, _and there are some scars in my memory I will never tell you about, John._

 

Sherlock doesn’t divert his gaze from the ceiling even when John notices the scars on his upper thigh, six in a criss-cross pattern, too _purposeful_ to be a result of an injury.

 

“What are these? Sherlock, did they... were you... tortured?”  

 

_Yes, I was. But there were no they. Only me. For you, everything for you, and you won’t even hear about it._

 

“You see but you do not observe **.”** These are the first words Sherlock utters in days. “Even you should be able to tell that these were self-inflicted.”

 

It’s only then that he looks at John, and only because he has no other choice; with his chin pulled down by a merciless hand and the look in John’s eyes is so fierce that even in the depths of his dysphoria Sherlock would flinch.

 

“You will never do such thing to yourself again, understand?”

 

“Of course not, mother hen. I have no reason for it now, do I?” His tone should have been mocking in a friendly way but it’s so cold that it sends shivers down John’s spine despite the hot air in the bathroom.

 

_Two days earlier_

 

John is not angry. He’s past angry and far worse; he’s calm, resigned, almost stoic. He disentangles himself from the grasp of Sherlock’s arms where they’ve been clutching around his waist like a rope around an anchor stone, leaving him kneeling on the floor.

 

“All right. We’ll start anew.”

 

 _It’s my fault_ , John’s shoulders say and Sherlock feels like screaming but the comedown is bad enough already. The little cash he had stolen from John’s wallet wasn’t enough for a proper binge. Just one shot. Just one, while John was still off his guard for once, dead asleep with exhaustion.

 

“Don’t blame yourself, John.”

 

“Well, who, then? You’re hardly responsible for your actions anymore...”

 

This hurts more than Sherlock would’ve ever expected. The distance between him and his friend is gaping wider every day and now he’s deprived himself of John’s _trust_. He reaches for him again, blindly, and buries his face in soft, worn wool. _Return of the prodigal son._

 

“Don’t send me away, please. Don’t hand me over to Mycroft. _Don’t leave me._ ”

 

Fingers tighten in his hair wordlessly. Maybe love can make amends where trust has been lost.

 

*

 

The phantom of Mycroft comes, perfect to the tip of his umbrella, and for once, silent. After a while that’s been too long even for this timeless place he comes over and sits down beside Sherlock. He waits patiently until Sherlock starts to sob, a small, almost forgotten sound of childhood that takes them both thirty years back.

 

“He promised he’d never leave me.”

 

“He never did.”   

 

*

 

_One day earlier_

 

Sherlock is manic. Practically bounces off the walls in his restlessness. John has removed everything breakable from their living room so there’s no use throwing things against the walls. The key to the kitchen door is in John’s safekeeping as well as the key to the flat. Wherever Sherlock turns in his psychotic rage he collides with the solid, quiet, maddening resolution of John Watson. It’s infuriating. He’s _trapped._

 

 _He’s observing me like a guinea pig in a treadmill_ , a snide voice in Sherlock’s head speaks against his better judgment. His mind immediately supplies the image of the Baskerville laboratory, dark, rattling with sounds engineered to trigger a panic attack; only this time with their roles reversed. It’s Sherlock who’s running in circles, haunted by demons orchestrated by a distant observer. Paranoia is getting the better of him and Sherlock doesn’t even fight it.

 

“Calm down.”

 

“Is that an order?” _It’s worth a try, to make him feel guilty for all this patronizing._

 

“Doctor’s orders, yes.” 

 

Sherlock summons all his frustration and tells John exactly how he feels about doctors, best friends and people in general who are so self-righteous to think they can _fix him_. He distills a poison out of his anger and lets it drop into each measured word that he throws at his only friend. John’s standing there by the window, facing the street but so obviously not looking out, maybe he’s blind with tears already and Sherlock revels in the pain he’s causing, just for a while, let someone else be hurting more than he is all the time.

 

Then John turns around and his eyes are flint and Sherlock sees that everything he said has just slipped off him. With horror he realizes that he can’t even _hurt_ John anymore. The beast in his head begins to scratch at the bars of its cage. Something _has_ to happen.

  

“I can fix you, yes. As soon as you acknowledge that you _are_ broken.”

 

Everything breakable has been removed from the room but there is still John. Rigid, calm, indifferent. Sherlock’s memory blanks out and all he can see him like is a ward in a prison. The beast paces now, searching the cage for a weak spot.

 

“It should have been the other way round,” Sherlock snarls, barely recognizing his own voice.

“When I faked my death, you were broken, weren’t you? I promised myself to come back and fix you. I hung on that promise all the time! But you’ve always got to be the hero, don’t you?”  

 

“So that’s what’s bugging you.” John seems to be thinking, hard.

 

“I can’t _reach_ you, John!” This is a cry for help, one moment of clarity before the dark clouds of anger coalesce back over his vision. His legs are moving on their own, taking slow steps towards the window, sinews taut, hands slowly balling into fists, voice tense in warning.

 

“And you won’t understand, you being so strong, so right, so _superior–_ ”

 

John lifts his chin a fraction, daring. “Go on, then. _Break me._ ”

 

The beast tears his way through its last restraints and Sherlock lunges.   

 

It’s only after the surge of aggression eats up nearly all his strength that he notices that John didn’t fight back. It’s only then he stops kicking the man curled on the floor and it’s precisely then when he starts to _hate_ him.

 

_Why did you let me do this? Why did you let me sink so low?_

 

John is still covering his head, drawing air in wheezing gasps, and maybe he doesn’t even notice when Sherlock picks the keys from his pocket. The door to the flat slams shut.  

 

_Six hours earlier_

 

–“You’ve reached the voicemail of John Watson. Please leave your message and I’ll get back to you ASAP.”

 

_John? It’s me, Greg. I’d really wish you’d pick up the phone. Had the strangest moment right now – Sherlock Fucking Holmes turned up out of the blue. Scared the shit out of me, I can tell you. Looked utter shit too. Dunno what happened- and he wouldn’t tell me- but what he said was really the weirdest thing- that if I should come to arrest him he wouldn’t put up any resistance. Just like that. So when I asked why on Earth should I want to arrest him he answered ‘Ask John.’ And off he went. Look, John, I’m really worried. I could tell right off he’s been using again. I’ve seen enough of him to be able to tell. John, don’t try to handle this alone, the man’s a menace when he’s on that stuff. Get back soon._

 

*

 

The letter was left on Sherlock’s music stand, a place where he would spot it immediately but safely far from Mrs. Hudson usual prying route.

 

_Sherlock,_

_When you’ll be reading this it will be too late to call anyone, so don’t._

_I’m sorry. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe I should’ve defended myself. I could have. You would’ve stood no chance against me if I chose to fight you. But I didn’t. It was a mistake._

_The truth is, I would’ve let you do anything to keep you. I didn’t want to lose you again._

_But I miscalculated. Now I know that I can’t live another day with you looking at me the way you did today. Like I was the most disgusting thing in the room. I should’ve known how you detest weaknesses._

_Because I have one, and it’s you. It’s always been you. I made the mistake of caring too much and you know, caring was never an advantage with you._

_I promised never to leave you, I know. But I can’t stay with you either. So this is the thing._

_I am really sorry_

_John_

 

*

 

He must have fallen asleep at some point, even then aware of the alternating phantoms showing up in a strangely regular pattern. Their presence left a faint nagging fear that they might try and take John to the land of shadows with them, so he took one of John’s hands into both of his own

_–so cold, so brittle_

 

and he tried to slow down his breathing so they would take him with them as well.

 

Time caught up with him when the hand stirred.

 

_One second_

 

“John?”

 

_Two, three, four, five–_

 

“Am _I_ dead too?”

 

“No. You better not be.”

 

The voice is barely audible, hoarse as it is coming from the abused neck, vocals sticking to the roof of his mouth together with his dry tongue, consonants slurred with the lasting effect of the medication. But the grip on his fingers is definitely perceptible, it’s real, and once again Sherlock doesn’t dare to move, just counting the seconds in his head frantically–

 

_Six, seven, eight, nine–_

 

The room around him expands indefinitely, morphing into a vague picture of rooftops and drizzling clouds. He falls again from the roof of Bart’s, towards the grey face and the eyes that plead time to stop, to run backwards. Only this time, he lands by his friend’s side.

 

“You _faked_ it.”

 

“Turnabout’s fair play.”

 

 “Why?”

 

“You’ve said it before. You were damaged, yes, but not broken. I was, when you... fell. I wanted to show you how it feels to lose something... definitely.”

 

The returning press of John’s fingers against his own still surprises him. Not that he’s afraid anymore that they would come apart in his grip, leaving only speckles of dust on his fingertips. He’s expecting them to flinch, any moment. Only that they don’t.

 

“What you wrote...?”

 

“It’s true.”

 

Silence spreads in the room, warm and comfortable. Sherlock counts John’s breathing and wonders if he’ll ever stop doing that.

 

“I think I hallucinated.” _Skin dried like a parchment, dark brown and cracked, revealing yellowy skull bones, returning his gaze with empty eye-sockets._

 

“You were safe. I told Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson to keep an eye on you.” _The phantoms._

 

“I won’t do it again.”

 

For a wonderful amount of seconds Sherlock doesn’t know which of them just said that. 


End file.
